Editorial

Abstract

This is a special issue of Cadernos EBAPE.BR dedicated to Epistemology, organized by Professor Mauricio Serva based on the "International Colloquium on Epistemology and Sociology of Management Science", an important event held in Brazil in 2017. The colloquium sought to advance the scientific field of management in Brazil and it was supported by leading Brazilian scholars such as Fernando Guilherme Tenório and Francisco Gabriel Heidemann, who have been working on issues related to Sociology and Philosophy and their interfaces with Public and Business Administration.Grounded on recent studies, the colloquium presented five research trends in administration studies, as shown by Maurício Serva in the article "Epistemology and Sociology of Administration", published in Cadernos EBAPE.BR (see 14, n. 1, p.1, 2016):The first is the confirmation of the critical inclination of administration epistemology within this applied social science, giving continuity to an option outlined at the beginning of this specific epistemology in the 1980s. The second is the enrichment of these critical approaches through the renewal of its bases, reaffirming what is happening in other sciences, i.e., the weakening of the criticism that was based on the so-called "main narratives". The third trend is expressed by the intense exchange of knowledge with other sciences and disciplines, providing advances for administration science and also for these disciplines.The fourth trend observed is the interest in deepening the debate on the philosophical, historical and scientific roots of the knowledge produced so far in administration. This tendency brings to administration field several studies in which authors do not only criticize/denounce the science posed, but go further and risk proposing new ways of analyzing, conceiving and experiencing the phenomena related to administration and to organizations. The fifth trend presented at the colloquium was the presentation of epistemological analysis of the knowledge produced in several specific areas of administration, such as strategy, finance and marketing, which diversifies the potential of administration epistemology.